“Get out,” he hissed, wrapping a protective arm around Odette. Her violent shakes were beginning to calm down slightly but he held her with the same bruising strength.
Greer pouted. “I was only helping, brother. This might have saved you another screaming match with your little toy.”
He glared at his twin, fighting himself on what he should do.
“Here’s something that you should keep in mind,” Greer said, standing up from the floor. “Stress can cause seizures.”
She looked at her brother knowingly while Odette began to wake up. She looked like she was in a great amount of pain from the dimness in her eyes and the way she was squinting.
“Greer?” Odette whispered, drawing herself closer to Grayson for protection. Her limbs felt like they weighed a ton but she knew that the smart thing would be to stay in his arms.
Greer seemed mildly annoyed. “Your screaming brought me here.”
“Well, you can leave now,” Grayson replied. “We wouldn’t want you to miss out on any beauty sleep.”
Even though her thoughts were muddy and her body exhausted from whatever had just happened, Odette knew better than to dismiss the female twin. She just had to gather herself before she spoke again.
Odette squeezed her eyes shut. “No. Greer, don’t go. Something bad has happened,” she rasped. “Maybe you can convince him to call the police.”
The girl quirked an eyebrow. “It must be bad if you’re asking for me to stay. What happened?”
“Zeke—Zeke’s body,” Odette shuddered in revulsion. “He’s dead, Greer.”
Greer’s reaction was reserved compared to what Odette had expected. She didn’t scream or cry. Her eyes only widened a fraction and her lips parted. “Grays, is this true?”
His jaw clenched. “I saw him too.”
“So, what now? Grandfather won’t like this,” the female twin muttered, her shoulders shaking lightly.
Grayson rolled his eyes. “Naturally, Greer.”
“Are you kidding me?” Odette couldn’t believe the both of them. “Call the police! Let them investigate this because I’m pretty sure that he didn’t just lose his limbs on a whim!”
Greer tugged on the ends of her hair. “She’s right. They need to be notified of this or else, when they do eventually discover it, they’ll think we had something to do with it … Odette, you’re bleeding.”
Odette didn’t know where because she couldn’t see but she figured that it must have been on her neck. The dress was sticking to her uncomfortably anyway, and the fabric of the collar was becoming unbearable.
“I’ll help her,” Grayson sneered. “Go ahead and call those pathetic policemen. Odette, you aren’t allowed to be downstairs when they arrive. Don’t even look out the window.”
There was no use in arguing with him on the subject. His resolve was clear and Odette had no energy to fight him on it. She allowed him to help her up and onto her feet and tilt her head upwards to examine the damage that she had done to herself.
“What an obedient pet you are,” Greer commented. Why she had not moved from her spot yet, Odette didn’t know unless it was to torment her some more.
“Leave before I throw you out, Greer,” Grayson ordered once again, his electric blue eyes glaring at her.
The girl held her hands up in defense, a sly smile on her face. “I know when I’m not wanted.”
“Obviously not.” Grayson lightly touched one of Odette’s wounds, a small smudge of her blood staining his finger. He frowned lightly before he licked it off. “Come, we’ll have to clean that. I’ll give you some new clothes too. And you better be downstairs by the time I have helped her,” he shot a pointed look to his twin who still loitered by his door.
Grayson released her chin finally, taking her by the hand and leading her out of his room to the bathroom. The darkened hallway reminded her of some kind of dream that she had had before but she couldn’t recall the details.
The wind outside howled, shaking the windows. At the end of the hall, lightning flashes caught Odette’s attention. It was yet another storm but she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy it. Every flash of light was sending her reeling back into her memories—memories of the deaths that she has had to deal with in her time in Sunwick Grove. She could see the young man dangling at the end of the hall—in her mind—and, while time had blurred some of his features, she could recall his bulging and bruised face vividly.
With another flash of lightning, that body was gone but replaced by that of the kindly Zeke. He lay in a heap in front of the window in a pool of his own rusted blood, his eyes open and begging for help. Odette couldn’t help but recoil, wrapping her arms around Grayson’s strong one.
“Are you frightened of the storm?” He stopped walking to look down at her. “Don’t be, it can’t hurt you.”
Odette shook her head, burying her face in his shoulder. “It’s not the storm. I’m scared of them.”
“‘Them’?”
“The dead bodies.”
Grayson inhaled and pulled her into his chest. He pet the back of her hair gently, his fingers massaging her scalp lovingly. “Don’t be scared of them. They can’t hurt you anymore either.”
Once in the bathroom, Grayson had Odette sit on the sink while he tended to the cuts she had made to herself. His face was neutral but focused as he cleaned her skin with soap and water. “Don’t do this again,” he whispered but it was loud enough for her to hear.
Odette winced in pain. The washcloth felt rough against her wounds. “It’s not like I meant to.”
“Doesn’t matter. You don’t do this again; I don’t like seeing you in pain.” He pulled out a bandage and wrapped it around her neck slowly and carefully, brushing her hair back out of his way.
“How can you be so calm?” Odette wondered out loud. “You’ve seen what I’ve seen and you act like it doesn’t affect you? You act like you aren’t going to be scarred for the rest of your life. How?”
His hands faltered but he continued a second later. “I’ve seen some pretty horrific things, princess. I’ve become … numb, I guess. That would be the best way to describe it.”
She frowned, letting go of the high neckline and fixing it back into its proper place. “You can’t possibly be numb to death.”
“You can be when you watched your parents die,” he said casually. “I had a front-row seat to their gory end … and Greer. It was the worst day of my life and it made me what I am today.” He didn’t even sound bitter about it, just numb, like he said. “Love and life are fleeting. You have to hold on to what you care for and fight for it tooth and nail, otherwise, there’s no point in keeping it.”
Odette knew that it was better to shut up. Grayson was getting into one of his moods. She swallowed hard, the bandages feeling more like hands constricting her airway.
So, she did the best thing that she could. She cupped his jaw and pushed his messy hair out of his face. The result was almost instant—Grayson’s emotionless facade melting away and his face regaining color. Odette pecked his lips slowly, the thunder from the outside shaking the mansion at the same moment.
Odette pulled back while Grayson chased her lips but she didn’t kiss him again. “Thank you for helping me.”
When the police did arrive, it was nearing three forty-five in the morning. Odette had been moved to the guest bedroom once again—although she somewhat thought of it as her own—and she was given strict instructions to keep the lights off and make no noise. Under no circumstance was she to leave the room unless Grayson—and only Grayson—came to get her.
She had shed the white dress, which had lost its comfort long ago, and wore an old nightgown that looked like something a woman in Victorian London would have worn.
“Where on earth did you get this?” she asked Grayson.
He shrugged his shoulders. “It was one of Grandfather’s strange buys. He either claimed that it belonged to a queen or that it was cursed.”
Odette blanched.
She remained skeptical about the garment but she didn’t outwardly tell him. He left her not long after and she changed into it, marveling at how the lace wasn’t irritating against her skin. Odette curled up on the bed and tried to close her eyes but she couldn’t. Her body wouldn’t let her. If it wasn’t for the fear of what she might see in her dreams, it was the horrendous storm raging on out her window.
She huffed, kicking the sheets off of her legs and letting them pool at the bottom of the bed. She threw her arms up over her head to stretch out when the lightning caught the reflective glare of her ring. Odette had completely forgotten about that being on.
It had only belonged to her for a short number of hours but she found herself overly comfortable with the weight it held on her ring finger. In the dark, it looked black rather than blue and it didn’t glitter at every single moment like Grayson’s or Greer’s. She began to twist it but found out that she couldn’t turn it all the way around her finger—only half—because of how large the stone was. The ring simply refused to move.
Marriage, Odette thought with a grimace. He wants to marry me. How strange. And something that she most definitely wouldn’t do … not for several years at least. Our emotions have been everywhere, she reasoned with herself. It isn’t like he actually meant it. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing. He thought he was helping.
The sound of her bedroom door opening made Odette sit upright. The lights came on and she saw … Jethro.
“Oh hello,” she greeted, her voice sounding scratchy from lack of sleep. And the screaming. “Have you … do you know?”
Jethro furrowed his eyebrows, his face drawn. He looked ages older than he had when she first met him. “Yeah, I know, sweetheart. It’s hard not to with the police swarming my front yard. How are you holding up?”
She figured he didn’t just mean tonight. “I don’t know …. One minute I’m screaming and trying to rip my throat to ribbons and the next I just feel nothing. Is this normal?”
He rubbed his face, a sad laugh filling the room. “I don’t know, kid. With all you’ve been through, well, you’re doing a lot better than I would be.”
“I don’t think so.” Even in the bright white room, she felt nothing but darkness around her. “I think that it’s driving me insane. I can’t even do anything to make these … these hallucinations stop. And the strange thing is, is that I have been miserable since … I moved. I’m scared every time I go to sleep and I’ve never had a legitimate reason to be but I always am.
“Grayson … Grayson’s helping me. He can make them go away, I think. He’s like a shield or something. Nothing bad ever happens when he’s around and he’s always there to help me pick up the pieces. He only wants what’s best for me.”
Odette hugged her knees, her eyes not focused on anything particular in the room.
“I’m sorry. About your parents, I mean.” Jethro stepped further into the room and leaned against the dresser. “The police are investigating it right now but it was supposedly set by gas stove. A freak accident but it does happen. But the real messed up bit is that they’re looking for you … not only as a missing person but a person of interest.”
Odette gasped. “You mean … they think that I might have set it? But that’s impossible!”
The older man hung his head tiredly. “I know. Grayson’s convinced us all to keep our mouths shut about you, though; that we ‘don’t know where you are.’ But, you have to admit, it does look sketchy that you just vanished after they died. I know that, if you go to the cops, they’ll take you away but, sweetheart, don’t you think that it would do you better to be away from here and all this death? At least they’ll know you’re innocent.”
She flinched, gripping the bed sheets so hard her knuckles turned white. “I want to but I can’t leave. I have no one. Grayson is the closest thing that I have to any family now and I’m scared what will happen to me if he’s gone too.”
“He doesn’t take abandonment well,” the man agreed with a sigh. “But, kid, you need to think about it. If he really cares about you then he’ll have to understand. We’ll help you as much as we can but, even with the powers we possess, they may not tell us enough concerning you.”
Odette didn’t want to do what he was telling her to do. Even if it did make sense, even if it was the responsible thing to do, being all alone was something she couldn’t handle. What would happen to her if she went away? What would happen to Grayson?
She was beginning to feel very lightheaded just imagining the possibilities. All worst-case scenarios filled her mind along with the bone-crushing weakness that she had come to know. The room around her felt all too small and her breathing was shallower.
“I can’t,” she muttered, her shaking hands coming up to thread through her hair. “I can’t be alone.”
Her limbs tingled with numbness and dread pooled in her stomach. Odette was aware that Jethro was moving around in her peripheral vision. A large hand clamped down on her bicep and she could feel another on her knees.
Odette squirmed away but Jethro was much stronger than her. Her head was forced between her now propped-up knees and she grunted from discomfort.
“Just breathe,” the man ordered.
He rubbed small circles into her back, repeating those words over and over again. Odette wanted to yell at him to shut up and let her panic, but found that the sick feeling started to recede after a few minutes like that. The metallic taste on her tongue started to vanish and she took several shuddery inhales before she moved again.
“How did you know what to do?” she asked him quietly, moving several strands of hair that had entered her mouth away. She could feel a few tears fall from her eyes but she wasn’t sad. She didn’t think she was anyway.
Jethro pursed his lips. “You aren’t the first kid I’ve known to have panic attacks.” He rubbed his hands on his pants almost awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to trigger one for you but you need to think about it, Odette.”
She opened her mouth to respond when an imposing shadow fell across the bedroom floor. Grayson stood in the doorway, his eyes fixated on his grandfather.
“Why are you in here? What have you done to her?” He yanked Odette off of the bed and put her behind him protectively.
Jethro scoffed quietly. “No need to get defensive, Grayson. I figured I would check up on her to make sure that she was fine. But now that you’re here, I think that I’ll go back down to those officers and help however I can.”
He smiled politely at Odette and left the room just as mysteriously as when he had come.
Grayson angrily closed the door, checking both ways to ensure none of the cops had come upstairs. “Why was he in here, Odette? That man only causes trouble wherever he goes. He knew better than to come in here, especially when they are just outside.”
The light switch was flipped and they were in total darkness once more. It reminded Odette of the nights when he would sneak in through her window to come and see her, only with more anger and tears.
“Come on, Odette, tell me,” Grayson demanded. “Or do I have to force it out of you?” He wasn’t threatening her, rather, he sounded bored, like he was talking about school.
She bit her lip. “H-he wanted me to go to the police. He wanted me to go, so that I could prove that I wasn’t involved in the fire and … so that I could get away from here.”
Odette could see the silhouette of Grayson, how his shoulders were tensed and the way his fists were clenched. Outside, the storm was receding but a flash of lightning illuminated his features. She didn’t know what she expected. Anger? Sadness? No. He was blank and still as a statue. He wasn’t looking at her but rather through her.
Odette reached out to him, “Grayson?”
As soon as her hand made contact with him, it was like he woke back up. �
�Princess, I love you. You should go to sleep.”
What?
“I—” Odette was cut off by Grayson tugging her into him. He hugged her tightly, his fingers lacing into hers. “I … care for you too.”
Grayson kissed her forehead, long and sweet, and the next thing she knew she was asleep in his arms.
XXIII
Odette woke up and realized that she was standing up in her bedroom. That was far from the strangest part as the air around her was thrumming with some kind of energy. She could feel the energy’s warmth in her teeth and the buzzing in her eyes.
Her hand reached out to the bedroom door and clasped the cool handle, the knob clicking mechanically. When the door opened, she came to understand that the hallway was not the same as it had been the night before. It wasn’t a matter of a change in décor, but the doors were missing and so were the windows. It was just blank and grey.
Stepping further into the hall, her door shut behind her and promptly vanished as well. Odette swore under her breath, pressing her hands against the solid wall, pushing against it, but there was nothing that revealed that there was once a door on it. She was trapped.
“This is just a dream,” she muttered to herself, punching the wall lightly.
She breathed out, frustrated, and turned around. The hallway seemed to stretch out forever in front of her but not behind her. If there was a way out, it would be down in the endless darkness. Odette kept a lookout for anything that resembled a door of some kind but there was absolutely nothing. Even more frustrating was that there were no turns or corners, and there was nothing that distinguished just how far she had come like a picture frame or something.
I’m so tired, Odette thought to herself. Maybe I should just curl up on the floor and sleep. Can you sleep in dreams?
And then she walked straight into a wall. Odette was more stunned than hurt; she hadn’t seen a wall at all. It had just seemed like the corridor kept going but, apparently, it didn’t. She rubbed her nose, which had taken the brunt of the hit and silently cursed the wall. She was about to turn around and go back to where she had started when a door just to her side caught her attention.
Violent Delights Page 25
